Protective Styles can be a great means of retaining hair growth if done correctly, and I tend to focus more on growth retention during the cold winter months when it is easiest for your hair to become damaged. Earlier in the season I discussed the popularity that faux locs were gaining. If you didn’t know I recently installed my own set of Faux Locs as a protective style a few weeks ago and hands down this protective style has become my all time favorite protective styling option. Now of course with that said you can tell there is going to be a clear bias when I lay down the pros and cons of this particular protective style but I will give you the best of both worlds to help you make your own decision when deciding how to protective style this winter season.
Cons Of Faux Locs:
1. Sticking Together: After watching loads of Youtube videos, and doing my research on this particular protective style I never ran across any issues with the locs actually sticking together. But once I started talking about them more often I ran into a few other people who had the same issue. My faux locs DO stick together unless I constantly keep them moisturized which I do not always do. There is a way of alleviating it, however it is still a bit annoying to have to pry them apart from one another in order to complete my next hair style.
2. Fuzz Balls/ Frizziness: Of course some frizziness is to be expected with Marley hair and I honestly feel that the frizziness in moderation gives the faux locs character and gives them a more natural appearance, however too much frizziness can make it seem very messy and unkempt. Thus requiring a few touchups here and there depending on how maintain them. You can alleviate some of this frizziness by moisturizing, reburning the hair, and sleeping with a satin scarf or bonnet (which I have not done). However the fuzz that builds up on the hair is just out of control and unavoidable. Like I said it is cold out here in NYC which requires sweaters and scarves! Well… the hair always seems to hold on a bit to those articles of clothing leaving fuzz balls on the hair that can be a nuisance to take off.
3. Weight: Faux Locs can be a bit daunting to wear because they are a 2 for one protective style to so say. Depending on the method you choose to use when installing your hair you can end up with some serious extra LBS on top of your head which can eventually lead to neck/back pain. Fortunately I haven’t had to go through this issue as I chose to use the method of installing faux locs that required as little hair as possible while still giving me amazing results. I only used 4.5 packs of Marley Hair! If you haven’t seen the video of my installation process take a peek at the video below to see how I achieved this.
4. Slipping & Sliding: My initial install resulted in plenty of touchups during the first week. However once I tweaked my methods that stopped happening. You want to make sure you properly install the hair the first time around because the hair can become unraveled from the root and or slide right off of your hair. On the extreme other end you also want to make sure you do not install too tightly around the root as you can cause too much tension which can lead to alopecia if done repeatedly in the long run.
Pros Of Faux Locs:
Locs without the commitment: I have been dabbling with the idea of getting real dread locs but didn’t know how I would look or how others would respond to the change. Faux Locs allowed me to kill two birds with one stone without having to make any permanent decisions.
Very Low Maintenance: Because faux locs have the rugged natural frizzy look you don’t have to do too much to them to keep them in that “Fresh” state. Unlike Marley Braids and Box braids that can start to look a little dingy if not properly maintained the locs don’t need as much upkeep.
Still a hot commodity: Though faux locs are picking up popularity in the natural hair community and seem to be all over the place when you search the hashtag, in “real life” (haha) I haven’t seen anyone with them and I live in New York which is very big and involved in all of the latest trends in the natural hair movement. For a majority of my friends, family, coworkers, and students I am the first person they’ve ever seen with faux locs and they are so amazing. So it definitely feels nice standing out from the crowd when everyone else is using box braids and marley twists as their go to protective style (nothing wrong with either I love them both). The price point on both of those is also a bit lower therefore making it easier to go and have them installed vs. Faux Locs which I do not see advertised in many African braiding salons that cover the other two styles.
Install & Take Down: The install process was not as gruesome as I thought it was going to be because I chose not to box braid or twist the hair first before wrapping (technique demonstrated in tutorial below). This technique also makes it easy for removal as I just have to snip the bottom and watch it unravel all the way to the top. This is way easier than having to remove a sew in (my least favorite take down process) or box braids which can also take up a bit of time.
So are you thinking about installing faux locs? Or have you done so already? What has been your experience?